The Paradox Men — Charles L. Harness

Introduction by Brian Aldiss

The Paradox Men is a science-fiction classic of its kind -- a full-blooded adventure story of derring-do and distressed damsels, set after the Third Great War when North and South America are united into one country: Imperial America.

A slave state run by a small noble elite who flaunt their wealth by using, and abusing, the one commodity that only the rich can have: human labor. But working underground, persecuted by the police, is an organization dedicated to the overthrow of government and the existing way of life and the establishment of freedom.

The Society of Thieves was the only organization that flouted authority in America Imperial: they robbed the rich to buy freedom for the slaves. They were well equipped and trained for their job and had friends and informers in high places ready to reveal where the wealth of the nobles was hidden. And Alar was the best Thief of them all -- for he had senses not found in ordinary men, senses that accurately warned him when danger was near. But Alar had amnesia and did not know his true identity though sometimes he sensed that there was a purpose in his actions that was not entirely his own volition.

When Keiris, wife of the Imperial Chancellor saw him, she sensed that he was something special and helped him to elude pursuit even though it put her own life in danger. And in trips to the Moon and even the Sun itself, Alar begins to see what part he is destined to play in the struggle for men's freedom.